Non gaming laptop for nephew

[SonOfCrusader76]

Hi there.

I'm on the lookout for a laptop for my nephew. He doesn't need it for gaming - mainly for surfing the net, watching youtube videos, listening to music and uploading/downloading/editing intros for MW2 clans (maybe he'll want to try his hand at making his own at some point).

Trouble is, I know jack about laptops. If this was a desktop PC, I'd know to go for a Core i7 over an Intel Core 2 Duo, for example. RAM and HDD space works pretty much the same as a desktop I'd imagine, so the CPU is the component I need to know about - also bear in mind what it'll be used for. I don't think he's going to get one for more than £500, so that's the budget. 3gb RAM and a 300gb HDD should be ok?

One thing I do know is once you got it, that's pretty much it - you can't easily upgrade things like CPUs and GPUs in laptops, can you? So it needs to be as future-proof as possible - I'm expecting that to be tricky given the budget. Of course, a decent battery life would be good as well.

Please reply ASAP - it's his Christmas present! Yes, I know we've left it very late, it's just the way things have turned out. Will be heading off to PC World soon to buy it - it's not going to be ordered online.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[karamazovmm]

You could try the budget laptops.

Acer:
Timeline series, with the i core series of processors.
Aspire line

HP:
The compaq line (yes its now a ''business'' line)
The G42

Asus:
U series (may be slight of budget, but battery life is great, again the i core line of processors)
N series.

Dell:
inspiron

and thats all.

The main focus on laptops should be battery life, a good processor, and some space in the HD, for me the 320g is enough, I do use 2 external 1tb drives for storage.
Since you are not going to be gaming on it, you can avoid the debacle of GPUs.

BTW do never buy anything larger than a 15.6'', because that is the maximum limit in terms of portability.

You could buy some AMD processors, mainly the phenom line they dont compete with the i core line from intel, but you can get a good offer with one of those, and as a plus have the ability for some light gaming.

PS: I have saw the DV6 with the phenom and an AMD 5650 that is good for some quality gaming, and it retails in the US for some 600 bucks.

[SonOfCrusader76]

OK - thanks for that. The weight isn't really a concern, as it's not going to be taken outside of the house. It's being bought so nephew has his own system so he can use it when he wants and do what he wants on it (within limits of course). As well as that, he'll be able to use it in any room in the house - but it's not going to school with him or anything like that. As I said, it's not being bought for gaming, but if it can play at least some games that would obviously be a welcome bonus - my nephew and I are long overdue a showdown on the battlefield of one of the older TW games, such as Rome.

Found this one at Argos:

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...er/5083383.htm

Good price - should be within the budget (£500 was being a bit optimistic ) - and a decent spec machine. Plus, this review:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/lapto...specifications

says it has a 5hr + battery life.

[karamazovmm]

here is some good choices:
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...7C16164800.htm

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...7C16164800.htm

I prefer the first.
The problem with that acer is: there is a model from HP that the build quality is better, and its cheaper + its the same config.

The gt325m wont bring any demanding games to its knees, but you can at least play something on it, something largely impossible with the intel GPU

[SonOfCrusader76]

I went with this one in the end, I'd read good reviews about it and the price wasn't bad:

Buy Acer Aspire 5741A 320GB 15.6in Laptop. at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for .

For some reason though, it doesn't want to connect wireless to the router. It is identifying the router - the name comes up - but when I try to connect and enter the security key, it keeps saying that it cannot connect. I tried connecting an ethernet cable to it, and then connecting to the router wireless - that had worked in the past with wireless connection issues, but not this time.

This is my nephew's main Christmas present, so I want to get wireless up and running ASAP - the net and youtube in particular are where he spends most of his PC time, so without that working....

Edit: Just found this post:

Another thought - You do have the Acer WiFi card set to INFRASTRUCTURE and not AD-HOC networking.

How do I change that setting? Can't find anything like that under Networks etc in Control panel.

Edit: Didn't see your post about the HP until just after I got back from buying this one.

[karamazovmm]

I dont have the faintest idea.

here is a good forum that you can ask this: notebookreview

[SonOfCrusader76]

Decided to abandon the onboard adaptor and go for a USB one. But...

This laptop wireless card business is REALLY beginning to piss me off now! I have bought two so far, neither wants to work on my nephew's system, or mine - I'd give him my adapter if I could get another to work on my system!

The latest I've tried is this one: GetNet GN-621U Wireless N USB Adapter.

It didn't work in either system - not by plug and play, not by using the driver disk, not by downloading new drivers - nothing - and on the box it says it supports Windows 7.

Now, the adapter I've been using for a long time: Tenda W311U worked straight away as soon as I plugged it into my nephew's system! No drivers, no bloody downloads - just plugged it in and worked first time. Naturally, I can't flaming well find that particular model in any stores. I also tried installing it under safe mode, as someone on Amazon said:

Quote:
This is a great product once installed, I have a WIN7 laptop and this is meant to be WIN7 compatible, when i insterted the adapter it installed but it could not find any signal from the router, after checking things and changing settings etc out for almost 2 hours (I am an IT person also) I decided to uninstall this and booted laptop in safe mode, installed and bingo, all worked perfect, rebooted back to normal windows and still worked like a charm.

Great product, just needs to be installed via safe mode for proper installation.
Didn't work for me. Naturally.

Can you guys help? I know you suggested another forum, but it's a pain to have to register to yet another forum!